The amount of time required for a computing system to power on, power off, or reboot depends greatly on the number of applications, services, or drivers loaded or running on the computing system. In order to evaluate the shutdown or startup performance of a computing system, an administrator may measure the startup and shutdown times of a computing system using local tools that are installed on, specifically designed for, and dependent on the operating system running on the computing system.
Unfortunately, because these local tools are unable to respond to incoming requests when the computing system's operating system is in the process of starting up or shutting down, administrators lack the means for remotely evaluating the startup and shutdown performance of remotely-managed computing systems.